Beginning with the Ubume Bird-Chapter 579 - 11: A Heart-pounding Step by Step
Ding Ru took off his chef’s jacket and pulled out a red flip phone from his hand, quickly dialing a number, his eyes intently fixed on Li Yan outside the door, fearful that any noise would alert him.
"Hello?"
Soon, a magnetic voice came through from the other end.
"Everything you said before, I agree. Come to Tiger Tooth Tower immediately to rescue me."
Ding Ru spoke lightly and quickly.
"Ten minutes."
The person on the other end didn’t ask anything, concisely saying one line before hanging up immediately.
Ding Ru exhaled deeply, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Accidentally, he glanced at the sea bowl on the table, and his pupils suddenly constricted.
The round table with a melamine sticker had been burned through with a hole as large as a fist. The blue and white porcelain sea bowl on the table was shattered, and Cha Xiaodao, with blue smoke rising from all around her body, was staring straight at him.
"Do you think you’ll have another ten minutes?"
Ding Ru’s face remained stoic as he shifted to the side, keeping his guard seven-tenths alert for Li Yan outside the door.
"I never thought about killing you. I lost Yi Yi to you before, so let’s make another bet this time. Your reinforcements will arrive in ten minutes, right? If you can withstand me for these ten minutes, my people and I will leave without a word. But if you can’t hold on, leave the Lapel Flower and Yi Yi’s inheritance with me."
"..."
Ding Ru remained silent.
"I’ll count to three, and if you don’t agree, I’ll tell everyone outside to come in and slaughter you together, three."
A flurry of confusion went through Ding Ru’s mind, and he blurted out, "Deal, let Yan Fu judge."
"Good."
Cha Xiaodao’s fingertips kept producing swirling black ink marks. Eventually, seven seal characters encircled to form a two-meter-tall gate, from which a rich and imposing aura exuded, bursting with wealth and splendor.
Celestial Blessing: In books, there are houses of gold.
It created a real illusion; both parties pulled into the illusion would not cause any damage to the physical world, with the duration lasting for ten minutes.
This was the combination effect of the characters from Kui of the Chief Celestial.
Kui of the Chief Celestial was originally a supportive inheritance, and even though Cha Xiaodao could no longer progress in this inheritance, she could still use existing skills like Celestial Blessing to accomplish some extraordinary feats.
"It’s an emergency period now, Zhao Jianzhong is turning a blind eye. But if things really get out of hand, no one leaving today will be in good shape, come inside and fight with me."
Ding Ru scoffed in disdain, "How do I know you haven’t tampered with anything?"
Cha Xiaodao sneered as she interrogated, "Don’t you know me very well?"
"..."
Ding Ru fell silent for a long moment before gritting his teeth and pointing at the doorway, "You go in first."
Cha Xiaodao, without another word, stepped through the gate immediately.
Ding Ru’s face flitted with indecision, and he too stepped over the threshold. As he entered, he heard a noise overhead and looked up sharply, just in time to see a hundred-meter-tall steel monster with its head made of intertwining black and white flames, its body billowing with red steam. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
A chill went through Ding Ru’s heart.
"It seems you don’t know me that well after all,"
Cha Xiaodao said so.
————————————————
Li Yan was idly counting stars when he heard a door open behind him. Cha Xiaodao walked out from Tiger Tooth Tower and tossed a white lapel flower to Li Yan.
"It’s done,"
His expression was very indifferent.
"Night snack?"
"Sure."
Eight minutes later.
A man with an indifferent face and dressed in a suit walked into Tiger Tooth Tower.
He looked around and soon spotted Ding Ru, who was drenched from head to toe as if he had just been pulled out of water. Ding Ru’s face was ashen, his eyes vacant. Except for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he seemed no different from a dead man.
The man in the suit stared at Ding Ru, who resembled a person in a vegetative state, for a while but made no move to approach or start a conversation. Instead, he turned and walked out, making a phone call on the street.
"I’m late, the guy’s already a goner."
"...Then leave it. I’m in a meeting right now, I’ll call you back later."
"Alright."
The man in the suit hung up the phone.
On the other side was a clean-cut young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He too hung up his phone and switched it to silent mode, nodding apologetically to the others present: "I’m sorry."
This was an extremely grand office where more than thirty diversely dressed men and women, old and young, even monks, were seated around a long table.
"It’s fine, now, where was I?"
Zhao Jianzhong stared at the clean-cut young man and asked.
"We were discussing the proposals that need to be passed at the upcoming Yan Zhao Club meet in advance."
"Then I’ll continue."
Zhao Jianzhong surveyed everyone present. There were twenty-four people in total, except for Feather Lord Cao Yuanchao and Scale Lord Zhu Jiuyin.
Other core characters from the second seats were also sitting at the table, including Yu Shiqie, Xia Gengshi, who had once replaced Scale Lord and landlord in the Ten Masters’ internal meetings, and Si Wenji of Third Eye Global notably among them.
Zhao Jianzhong made a casual stroke, and suddenly, a block of white, miserable-looking mass appeared on the table. That was the current state of Luo Jiazi Six.
"When Su Ling and I hurried to the scene, the situation was already beyond control. None of us witnessed An’s death firsthand, but we all understand..."
Zhao Jianzhong gestured with his hands, "That unique bubble, it disappeared."
A long silence fell over the meeting, and even a whimsical person like Si Wenji had a solemn look on her face.
"In fact, this is not the first example of an attack on high-level Proxies. I have received reports from many of you here, including Su Ling and Zhu Jiuyin, saying that you have been attacked by Sifan forces."
As he spoke, Zhao Jianzhong looked towards Su Ling.
Su Ling also lifted his head in time: "There is such an incident. A native developed a new type of fifth-order drug and claimed they wanted to meet me. On the day of our meeting, they detonated the power of Sifan directly, causing a small scale peeling effect. I lost an entire team of decoys."
"The natives have Sifan?"
Someone asked.
"Three years ago, the Yan Zhao Club and Sifan waged an all-out war, with the flames of battle touching tens of thousands of Yan Fu Fruits. At the time, led by Hate Parting and Old Suffering, high-level operatives of Sifan crazily embedded seeds of Sifan’s power in various fruits, trying to assassinate high-ranking Proxies. Some of this Sifan power ended up in the hands of the natives after the war, while some became dangerous duds lingering to this day. Luo Jiazi Six here was one of the seeds embedded back then to assassinate Cao Yuanchao, and now they have found it and reused it."
After a pause, Zhao Jianzhong continued: "After the war, the Ten Masters passed a resolution, with Cao Yuanchao establishing Third Eye Global. One of its main tasks was to locate the Sifan seeds scattered across Heaven Jiazi Nine globally. Yan Fu is too vast for us to cover everything, but at least we can’t also have landmines buried at our doorstep. In this regard, Third Eye Global has done quite well over the years."
The people exchanged glances. All of them could be considered powerhouses at the pinnacle of Yan Fu. Yet, many of them only found out today that Cao Yuanchao had established Third Eye Global with that reason in mind.
"But now the situation is different."
Zhao Jianzhong changed tone: "It’s been almost three years, right? Most of you have joined the Yan Zhao Club after the war. Back then, when Sifan was eradicated, you were the biggest beneficiaries. Over the years, the Yan Zhao Club has stepped into fruits, big and small, totaling over fifty thousand, and many barren lands from the past have been open for you to tread upon. When Sifan was gone, you could enjoy some peace. Now with Sifan making a comeback, who can guarantee there isn’t such a seed lurking in your backyard?"
He shook the white mass floating in mid-air.
"Or do you think you are stronger than Qin An and can remain unscathed from such an attack?"
